Caesars Palace opened on Aug.5th, 1966.  It was a grand opening  that was befitting a "modern emperor of Rome" wrote George Stamos.  It was an extravagant beginning that would remain unsurpassed for over thirty years.  According to records, 1,800 guests were invited including the top names in show business and the political arena.  Over two tons of filet mignon were served along with 300 pounds of crabmeat, 30,000 fresh eggs, 50,000 glasses of champagne,  the largest (for the time) Alaskan King Crab ever served and the largest order of Ukrainian caviar ever bought by a private organization.

Opening in the luxurious Circus Maximus Showroom was crooner Andy Williams and Broadway star, Elaine Dunn of  "Bye Bye, Birdie" fame.  Dunn headlined a revue produced by veteran Bill Moore called "Rome Swings".  According to writer George Stamos, it "was one of the most lavish (revues) in the city's history.". 

In preparation for this opening, Sarno went looking for the cream of the crop employees to run his dream come true.  Just as carefully as he selected the artwork and building materials, he selected the men and women who would deal with the day-to-day operations of his hotel.

Nathan Jacobson was a Baltimore insurance executive.  Sarno hired him to be president of the hotel.  Jacobson was known for his business acumen and knowledge.  Sarno made his partner, Stanley Mallin, vice-president.  U.S. General Harry Wald was also made a vice president.  He had been associated with Sarno and Mallin in the Palo Alto Cabanas.

Wald told writer George Stamos, "When  Caesars first opened some of the gaming fraternity didn't give us much of a chance, partly because of the unusualness of the aesthetics  But we just opened the door and never looked back.".

Gloria Brown was a feisty young woman when Wald hired her as office manager.  She quickly learned that trouble-shooting was part of her job description.

"It was absolute chaos back then.  We worked out of the original construction shack, which has since been converted into our personnel office.  At any given hour there wasn't  a second when the phone was not ringing.  There were at least 50 people waiting for appointments around the clock.  It actually came to be fun after I got caught up in the excitement of it  all." (Interview with writer, George Stamos).

Many of the employees that started with Caesars still attest to its feeling of family among the workers.  The attitude may have looked relaxed but everything was done with an eye on giving the customer the ultimate experience while staying in the hotel. 

The resort's Entertainment Director was Dave Victorson who was known for having a keen eye for talent and was known as a fair man among the entertainers clamoring to be associated with the next big hotel on the Strip.

In the lounge the madcap Ritz Brothers, Harry and Jimmy, opened Nero's Nook.  The lounge sat 250 people, was terraced and shaped like an amphitheater complete with reflecting pool in front of the stage.

Harry Ritz recalled the excitement.

The Circus Maximus showroom was modeled after the Coliseum in Rome and the walls were originally painted blue to capture an evening mood.  The elite of the entertainment business fought to play Caesars and its 800-seat showroom.

The hotel sat on 34 acres back then and included the 14 story tower and 700 rooms.  The tower rooms housed some of the most lavish suites found on the Strip at that time.  Some were two-stories with jacuzzi tubs and had floor to ceiling windows that offered a view of the famed boulevard.

There were 18 huge fountains in the center and to the sides of the 135-foot drive up to the front doors of the hotel.  Imported Italian Cypress lined the drive up.  The fountains sprayed over 350,000 gallons per minute at 10,000 gallons per second.  There was more than $150,000 worth of statuary imported from Peter Bagganti of Florence, Italy.  Brazilian rosewood and gold leafing were throughout the lobby and the reception area.  The entry foyer had white marble panels surrounded by black mosaic tile.  The casino, dubbed Caesars Forum, had the world's largest crystal ceiling fixture made of the finest German crystal.

The hotel's large rear pool was designed after the baths of ancient Pompeii.

The casino manager was Jerry Zarowitz whose liberal methods of giving credit would come back to haunt the hotel in times to come.  His staff included Eugene "Babe" Koren, Jake Newman, Albert Faccinto, William "Red" Kilm and George Deverell.  Casino Cage manager was John Dunn.  Joe Styne, a noted Broadway composer, was brought in to produce musicals for the showroom.

But it was  Nate Hart and his eye for culinary experience that gave the resort its highest compliments.  Everyone raved about the high quality of the food and the lavish settings.  Hart was, at one time in his career,  a consultant to the Japanese government and had helped plan their exhibit at the New York World's Fair.  He was brought on to assist Caesars in creating their unique food services.

As noted previously, there were only two restaurants:  the Noshorium Coffee Shop and the Bacchanal Room.  

The Bacchanal Room was indeed special and a room born of its time.  Diners could relax in imperial splendor and be served grapes from the hands of goddesses.  These goddesses brought wine served from shoulder carafes and would give male diners neck and shoulder massages if they were requested.

Within 48 hours of opening, the first celebrity wedding took place when Bandleader Xavier Cugat married Charo, a young Latin singer and expert flamenco guitar player,  in his band.

The convention facility which included 25,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space was said to be booked two years out.  That came about because of Charlie Monahan.  Monahan had been hired by Caesars in February 1965 to sell the still-being-built hotel to conventions exhibitors and convention associations.

"I had worked in Atlantic City and in Miami at the Traymore Hotel before coming to Las Vegas.  I remember telling Nate Jacobson that he couldn't afford me but he could, as it turned out.  In the early days there was very little shade around Caesars.  In fact, we were working out of a rented trailer.  One day we were showing an association executive around the construction site and discovered it was his birthday.  So we gave him a little champagne party and he eventually booked his convention with us.". (Interview with George Stamos).

The first convention to be held at the hotel was in September, a month after opening.  The National Milk Producers held their regional convention there.  Many of the executives booked the hotel in advance despite the fact that it was still under construction.

By the time the hotel opened, Monahan says that he and his staff had booked $42.2 million in convention dates.

Opening night in the Circus Maximus showroom is now the story of legends.  The audience was filled with the elite of Hollywood's silver screen and television as well as many from the political limelight.  The audience had been late getting seated due to all the dignitaries so dinner had been late being served.

Wine and spirits flowed very liberally as the showroom staff worked hard to get dinner served and the plates cleared away so that the show could begin.

By the time the desert plates were being taken away it was well after 9:00 pm and the audience had been there, some for over three hours.  By the time Andy Williams took the stage few were feeling any pain.

Williams, to his credit, played to a slightly inebriated sold-out crowd and the audience response was so good that Williams headlined at the hotel for the next twelve years.

He would share the bill with a roster of eclectic stars including Wally Cox, Woody Allen, Broadway musicals, Carol Burnett and ultimately Frank Sinatra.

But that is getting ahead of the story.

Bachannal Room Goddesses


Some of the $150,000 statuary

When in Rome



Original Porte Cochere

Opening Brochure

Special Thanks to Dennis McBride, Curator of History at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas

and As We Knew It (the brochure) for letting us these images.

UP NEXT:

Sinatra, The Checkmates

and Caesars in the swinging '60's

In 1961, Jay Sarno had a dream that bordered on being visionary. Sarno was a successful hotel operator, builder and designer. He had a string of motor hotels, the "Cabanas", that had won prestigious awards for excellence in design and service. His California Cabana in Palo Alto was named the outstanding motel in America one year.

But the California Cabana's true mission was "just a practise run for Caesars" Sarno told interviewer George Stamos over thirty years ago. Sarno often traveled the Southwest on business and he stopped in Las Vegas frequently. He always noticed that the planes had fewer passengers when he left Las Vegas.

He surveyed the hotels at the time and was "unimpressed with their physical facilities and their western decor." He had an idea for doing something in a Roman-Grecian motif.

He originally liked the name "Desert Palace" for his new hotel.

Sarno and a good friend, Stanley Mallin, had met at the University of Missouri where both men where studying business. They served in World War II together and became life-long business partners. After the war, they teamed up as tile contractors in Miami which was enjoying a building boom. But Miami depended upon seasonal tourists so the money did not always flow their way. Sarno was not always an easy partner to work with. He was a bit impractical. Mallin remembers:

"We needed a truck to haul tile and he took the money we had for that and bought a convertible." (Interview with K.J. Evans).

But Sarno had good ideas. He had grown up in the motel business and with America on the move in those post-war years, motels, especially motor hotels that combined the drive-up convenience with luxury (for the times) accommodations and service were doing brisk business.

Sarno and Mallin had one major problem, banks would not lend them money.

The two partners went looking for other lending sources. Along the way they met the legendary Jimmy Hoffa, head of the Teamsters Union. Along with Hoffa they met the union's money manager, Allen Dorfman. According to Mallin, Hoffa and Sarno hit it off from the beginning. Both were "hard-driving, impulsive, almost compulsive" (K.J. Evans interview).

The first loan from the Central States Pension fund went to build the Atlanta Cabana motor hotel in 1958. Jo Harris had just finished architecture school at Georgia Tech when she heard about the new motor hotel being built. She approached Sarno about a job as interior designer.

"Jay said, `I like your work but if anybody is going to work for me I expect her to be my girl,' " Harris remembered. (interview with K.J. Evans) "I said, `I've been to Miami and I know that if I wanted to be a prostitute I could earn six times what you're offering me.' I wanted to be hired for my ability, plus I was married.

"So that was the end of that, but two weeks later he called and said I wouldn't have to be his girl. He offered me $100 a day, which was all the money in the world." Harris would design for Sarno as long as he lived.

The Atlanta Cabana was a hit and Sarno and Mallin turned their eyes westward to California. They built the Palo Alto Cabana and another one in Dallas.

On a trip from California to Dallas, they stopped in Las Vegas. Sarno, a gambler since his early youth, loved the casinos but found the hotel accommodations lacking.

He and Mallin began planning their "Desert Palace". According to George Stamos, Sarno and Mallin initially entered into an agreement with Kirk Kerkorian. Kerkorian owned the land across from the Dunes and across the highway from the Flamingo Hotel. As the deal evolved, Kerkorian's finance company, Tracy Investment Company, became the landlord with the Desert Palace Corporation leasing the property.

Financing was secured through the Teamsters Pension Fund. Financing was in order by 1962.

Sarno chose Miami architect, Melvin Grossman to design his new hotel. Grossman was an internationally known architect. The R.C. Johnson Construction Company, a local business, teamed with Morey Mason Company of Miami to do the construction work.

It would be the first new hotel constructed on the now-famous Las Vegas Strip in nine years and overnight it would become the hottest hotel and casino in town.

But before that happened there were skeptics everywhere that believed that the European style hotel that Sarno had in mind would be a boondoggle.

In early 1965, Sarno moved his family to Las Vegas and construction began in earnest on the hotel.

According to Alan Hess, the new hotel 'broke from the roadside motel tradition to introduce a plan borrowed from Baroque cities."

Up to now, the majority of the hotels had used the roadside prototype calling for buildings to be arranged casually on the site. A sign or facade was shifted to attract on-coming traffic. Sarno broke with that tradition to make a bigger, bolder statement.

"The usual frontage parking lot was amended by a long axis of fountains marking an entry drive; the parking lots were pushed to the side for this grand effect. The focus was on a monumental structure with symmetrical wings reaching to embrace the limousines cruising up to the porte cochere. Above loomed a convex fourteen-story tower." (Alan Hess, Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture).

Caesars faced the Strip with a royal presence. Surrounded by desert and mountains behind it, the hotel looked no other on the famed boulevard.

Grossman, using the plans of the Palo Alto Cabana, as a reference got to work. The Palo Alto Cabana featured a long axial entry off the commercial strip of El Camino Real, a curving facade faced in black granite and wings faced in two stories of glass. Behind all that was a nine-story tower with pattern screens for privacy.

The hotel sat 135 feet back from the highway. The original porte cochere was a flat canopy backed by black-tiled screen, flanked by reproductions of Classical statues in scalloped niches. It was, as Alan Hess has noted, more Baroque Rome than Imperial Rome but Popes Palace would not have drawn as many gamblers.

The outer facade of the high-rise used "Sarno" blocks as privacy screens.  Its latticework design lowered internal room temperatures while presenting an attractive front.  The rooms got the bulk of the morning Eastern sun.  At night, the tower glowed turquoise. 

Behind the Roman fantasy though were the typical roadside motel rooms.  Low-rise room wings circled the pool terrace on the west side of the hotel.

On the inside, the casino, the largest built at the time, reflected Sarno's philosophy.  

"Over the years that I have been creating hotels, I've discovered that the oval is a magic shape...this is conducive to relaxation." Sarno told writer George Stamos in an interview in 1979.  "If you examine Caesars you will find it is oval shaped.  I even incorporated the oval design in the dice tables, which affects the dice angle geometry."

The large casino had an intimate feeling to it that Sarno confessed was no accident, "It is an optical illusion created by the twenty false columns encircling it."  He loved statues and fountains and Caesars had them both.

There was a shallow oval-shape dome over the gaming pit.  In the best Vegas tradition, the casino was window-less and relied on sparkling trim light to give it shape. 

All the shops, restaurants, pool entrance and the Circus Maximus showroom radiated off the casino.  "It meant that to go anywhere you had to go past the casino and it gave a sense of being around the action all the time." Jo Harris told writer K. J. Evans.   There was the Noshorium Coffee Shop, Cleopatra's Barge which sat in its own mini-Mediterranean Sea, one corridor led to the 1200 seat showroom where Andy Williams was set to open. 

This plan encouraged visitors and guests to explore the nooks and crannies. 

"The statuary that I used at Caesars was cut from the finest, purest, grade-A Carrera marble from Florence." (Sarno/Stamos interview). 

Alan Hess reminds us that "Caesars was a true popular culture appropriation of high-art forms overtly mixed with historical forms in a way that a high-art architect never would have done in this period." (Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture).

A roadside sign was still needed though to advertise the headliner, the lounge acts and the hotel.  Sarno asked for bids from local sign companies.  Young Electric Sign Company (Yesco) submitted a design by Kermit Wayne, Jack Larsen and their design team. 

Originally the design called for two attraction boards laced through the four Iconic columns; later a single, bigger board and two freestanding columns for support were added.  As Alan Hess says, "The result is emblematic of the attitude of theme architecture.  The artists used enough of the vocabulary of Classicism to make the images recognizable, then stretched that vocabulary to serve a new cultural context.  The columns were too large for a temple but just right for Las Vegas. "

Brian "Buzz" Leming, a young neon designer, worked as part of the team and remembers them going to Wonderworld on their lunch hour and digging through the bins of soldiers to find Roman soldiers.  Why?  Because Wayne and Larsen wanted to give some scale to the mock-up of the sign they were designing. (Interview with Brian Leming, 2004).

Sarno liked the soldiers so much he insisted that full-scale figures of vestal virgins and centurions be added to the base.

At the last minute, Yesco owner Thomas Young turned down the job because of the shaky finances of Sarno and Millan.  They had balked at paying half the cost before fabrication could begin.  Another Ad-Art stepped in to and did the job with no money down.  The sign ended up costing $30,000.  The sign Ad-Art designed was essentially (including the statues) as Yesco's.

It was 1966 and opening day was looming on the horizon. By the time the hotel was done, the Strip no longer resembled a random collection of hotels scattered down the highway.  "The roadside had evolved into a loose organization that defined an emerging urban form." (Alan Hess).

Reynar Banham, writing for the Los Angeles Times, noted "The Strip is grandly becoming a string of island palaces in a sea of dark, connected by a canal of leisurely automotive transport." 

Andy Williams and the Ritz Brothers were set to open the beautiful Circus Maximus showroom.  Invitations to dignitaries, both local, national and international, as well as celebrities had been sent out. 

On August 5th, 1966, Caesars Palace grandly opened its doors and Sarno and company held their breath, hoping that there new hotel would be a hit.

Special thanks to George Stamos, Alan Hess and UNLV's Special Collections 

UP NEXT:

ALL HAIL CAESARS!

THE EARLY YEARS! 

Parvin-Dohrmann's ownership of the Aladdin Hotel was short-lived.  On December 30th, 1971 a new group of investors, led by local business man, Sam Diamond bought the hotel.  The other investors in the group included Charles Goldfarb of Detroit, Peter and Sorkis Webbe and Richard L. Daly of St. Louis.  Goldfarb, Webbe and Daly encountered some licensing problems before the sale was sanctioned by the Gaming Commission.

According to writer George Stamos, "the difficulties centered around alleged associates of Goldfarb, a Detroit bails bondsman and his brother Irwin Goldfarb and another businessman George J. George also from Detroit."  The Gaming Commission asserted that "they had been involved at certain times with 'unsavory characters'.  The Goldfarbs invested $400,000 into the hotel and received 27% ownership.  George invested $200,000 for 15% ownership.  The Nevada Gaming Commission made a condition of the sale that those monies be returned to the Aladdin Hotel Corporation before a license of the remaining owners would be granted.

Gaming Commissioner Phil Hannifin handed down the ruling and remarked "There is no inference that the Goldfarbs or George are hoodlums." But he added, it was the Commission's responsibility to keep "any possible taint" of impropriety out of Nevada gaming. 

Diamond and the Webbes took over the hotel on January 1st, 1972.  They had acquired the property for $5 million according to reports.  They quickly brought some innovations to the casino including the first to institute double odds on craps and the first to introduce bingo on the Strip (the Landmark was still considered off-Strip). 

In addition, they underwent a $60 million renovation which included a new high-rise 19-story tower designed by Lee Linton and a new 7,500 seat special events theater that would be known as the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts Center.  The Performing Arts Center would replace the golf course.  The Center had rounded bays on each end and was crowned with Moorish Arches that were over-scaled for the property. 

While the tower was only 19-stories tall, according to George Stamos, the owners publicized it as 29 floors.  They started numbering the floors at 11 instead of 1 to get the desired 29 floors. 

They built a new porte-cochere fabricated by the designers at Yesco.  They also added a new 140-foot blockbuster sign, that according to our friend Alan Hess, had little neon and was mainly huge attraction panels with none of the arabesque quality of the original. 

The renovations would take a few years to complete.

In 1972, the Minsky's Burlesque at the Aladdin counted among its featured cast Tommy Moe Raft and "Curly" Joe DeRita of "The Three Stooges" fame. 

In February, 1976 it was announced that Ash Resnick would join the management team.  Resnick was a local businessman with ties to Dunes, Thunderbird, Tropicana and Caesars Palace.  He had briefly owned the little El Morocco.  He was good friends with sports figures such as Ali and many others. 

On July 2nd, amid a big grand re-opening, the Theater for the Performing Arts opened.  Neil Diamond was the headliner.  It would seat 7,500 people and added a new dimension by offering a quality showcase for the top acts in contemporary music.  While Sinatra, Martin, Davis and many of the old-guard entertainers still graced the various showrooms up and down the Strip, the new performers were having a difficult time finding a stage in town that could accommodate their sound.  The Beatles, Iron Butterfly and Led Zeppelin had all played the old Convention Center Rotunda.  Jim Morrison and the Doors had played the Ice Capades Chalet in Commercial Center.  Neither place was conducive to good sound.

The Performing Arts Theater solved that problem.  Now, there was a place on the Strip that catered to both crowds. For those of us of a certain age, the Theater was heaven.  Finally, we had a place where we could hear our music.  Acts from ELO to Willie Nelson to Jimmy Buffet to Bob Seger to Yes to heavy metal groups played the Theater.  In addition, the theater booked Broadway plays, ballets and even symphony orchestras and people attended.  The old Rotunda would be torn down in a few years and the Convention Center would become a real convention center.  The Judy Bailey Theater at UNLV, which prior to the Aladdin Theater, had been the home base of ballets and plays, could not seat as many as the Aladdin.

The casino had been remodeled and enlarged.  There were new restaurants, a new lounge where those lined up to go to the Theater could listen to the lounge performers while waiting for the doors to the Theater to open.  A shopping concourse connected the Theater with the rest  of the hotel.  And a new 20-story high-rise tower topped it off. 

The lounge featured some great entertainment.  The Irish Showband came over from the Stardust and brought its following.  Sam Butera and the Witnesses kept the place jumping now that Louis Prima was in a coma in New Orleans.  Freddie Bell was also featured in the lounge.  The Vagabonds with impressionist extraordinary Babe Pier kept the laughs coming. 

But despite all the good times, dark clouds gathered over the hotel.  The Performing Arts Center had been built with loans from the Teamster's Union and investigations were swirling at many major hotels up and down the famed Strip.  

The Goldfarbs and George were under investigation in Detroit and the Nevada Gaming Commission was watching the outcome of the trial.  In August 1979, Charles Goldfarb, casino boss Edward Monazym and general manager James Abraham were all convicted on charges of conspiring to allow "hidden ownership" to exert control over the resort.  The Nevada Gaming Commission ordered the hotel closed on August 6, 1979.  However, US District Judge Harry Claiborne ordered the hotel to reopen an hour later.

Sorkis Webbe was indicted on kickback charges amounting to upwards of $1 million during the expansion of the hotel adn the building of the Performing Arts Center.

This time the Nevada Gaming Commission's ruling to close the hotel stuck.  800 casino employees and another 1,200 hotel employees had no job to report to. 

Myram Borders took a tour of the hotel after it was closed. "It was eerie to be there, even as a reporter. The tables were closed and the slots were taped.  The casino was eerily quiet." (Interview with Borders, 2003).

The hotel attracted a series of serious buyers including Las Vegas staple Wayne Newton.  Newton had teamed with former Riviera president Ed Torres to bid on the property.  Also bidding was famed late-night host, Johnny Carson.  Carson also had ties to Las Vegas in that he co-owned a local independent television station, KVVU, Channel 5.  The bidding got ugly with rumors of Newton being tied to the mob.  But Newton and Torres prevailed and bought the hotel for $85 million.

But Newton and Torres may have been good friends but they weren't good business partners and they fought constantly.  The entertainment policy shifted from the big-name acts to revues.  Newton argued against the new policy saying it would only hurt the hotel.  Torres finally had enough of the arguing and bought Newton out in 1982.

But Newton had been right.  The change in entertainment policy along with other problems had Torres and the property fighting off creditors, banks and unions.  Within a year, Torres was trying to sell the property back to Newton. 

In February 1984, the Teamsters called their loan.  Torres was unable to pay and sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  The resort was $3.5 million in debt.  Newton didnt have the financing to buy the property back.

The hotel remained open while the finances got worked out. Lola Falana and Gladys Knight and the Pips were major headliners and kept the showroom in the Bagdad Theater filled.

But the bad news just kept coming.  Charges of mob infiltration and skimming again closed the hotel.

Finally it looked like the hotel might finally get a much needed break.  A mysterious Japanese businessman, Ginji Yasuda, was interested in the hotel.  He bought the hotel in 1987 for $54 million.  The casino remained closed while Yasuda was investigated by the Gaming Commission prior to be granted a license.  The Gaming Commission granted the businessman a two-year conditional license.   He was the first international owner of a Las Vegas hotel.

Yasuda began a year-long remodel of the hotel that reportedly cost upwards of $20 million.  But like too many before him, Yasuda had no experience running a hotel.  He had hired some very competent people, including Dennis Gomes of the Las Vegas Hilton to oversee gaming operations.  But once he hired them, he would not give them the freedom to do their jobs.  He second guessed everything according to Gomes.  Gomes and the others were soon fired.

Rumors began to fly that Yasuda was living way beyond the income that the Aladdin was bringing in, he was using the corporate jet to fly his wife to New York for an afternoon shopping spree, he killed the excitement in the casino by dictating that everything be in neat rows.

But the big rumor was that he had borrowed some $6 million in cash from Japanese organized crime figures to keep the IRS from seizing the hotel.  The rumor got the ear of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Before a meeting with the Nevada Gaming Commission in August 1989, Yasuda refused to tell commissioners where the money had come from.  They immediately pulled his license.  Less than four days later the hotel was back in bankruptcy court. 

Finally after many fits and starts, in 1992 casino executive Joe Burt took on a 12 year-year lease.  Burt started a $15 million renovation.  But while the hotel occupancy was high, no one seemed to be spending much time in the hotel gambling or eating.  The Mirage and Treasure Island had opened and Steve Wynn had announced big plans for the site of the old Dunes.  The Aladdin felt like a dinosaur.

It's only money-maker was the Performing Arts Center that booked acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Heart and a host of good musicals.  It looked like the hotel might overcome the latest hurdle.   Unfortunately for all involved, Burt was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1993.

Jack Sommer and his family trust, Sigman Sommer, bought the hotel in 1994.  Through their company, Aladdin Gaming LLC, they paid $80 million for the resort.

Barry Manilow played the Performing Arts Center.  Country Tonite, which was an award-winning show, kept bringing in the audiences. 

Despite promises to the contrary, in 1997, a resort spokesman announced that the hotel would be demolished.  A new $1.2 million resort would rise in its place.  Spanning 35 acres it would include gaming, restaurants, shopping and more.  Sommer promised to keep the Arabian motif.  The new hotel would have 2,600 rooms, 462,000 feet of shopping/retail space and a casino facing the Strip.  The new Aladdin would be three times the size of the former hotel.  

On November 25th, 1997 the Aladdin closed its doors again.  On April 27, 1998 the hotel was imploded along with 1,100 rooms, three tennis courts, two swimming pools, a shopping arcade, beauty shop, restaurants, coffee shop and Buffet.

A crowd estimated at 20,000 watched the implosion.  Like the other hotels before her, she hesitated before pancaking down.   Festivities included an auction for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Only the Performing Arts Center remained. 

Th Aladdin in 1973

The new signage featuring Lola Falana, James Darren and in the Performing Arts Center:

Jethro Tull

Special thanks to RoadsidePictures 

and UNLV Special Collections for letting us use these images. 

UP NEXT: 

Caesars Palace:  All Hail the birth!

 

 
Comedian Jackie Mason opened the Bagdad Theater with the other shows "The Jet Set Revue" choreographed by local Dorothy Dorben and a musical-comedy show featuring the Three Cheers and the Petit Rockette Girls. 
 
Prell was the largest stockholder in the new resort and on September 21st, 1966 the Nevada Gaming Commission granted his daughter, Sheila, permission to buy a 5% interest in the hotel.  Prell had set up a trust fund for her when he opened the resort.

Gaming included slots, Racehorse Keno and Pan Baccarat.  The gourmet restaurant was the Sabre Room and the Gold Room was the coffee shop.  The Aladdin had an Olympic-size pool (didn't they all?) surrounded by 30 apartment size villas left over from the Tally-Ho days. The hotel also had an 18-hole, par 3 golf course designed by golf course architect Bert Stamps.  It was billed as "the most challenging and finest par-3 golf course west of the Mississippi." (writer, George Stamos, 1979)

The other innovation was an escalator that moved patrons from the parking area to the casino.  The Aladdin was the first hotel in the state to have it.  The casino, for the moment the biggest in the state, was blue, gold and purple hued.  But people were fascinated by the escalator and it helped convey a modern feeling of convenience for the property.

A little more than a year later, the Aladdin would play host to one of the biggest events of the decade.  It was supposed to be a secret but UPI bureau chief, Myram Borders, who had grown up in Las Vegas and had returned as a well-known and respected journalist, received a call in the middle of the night. 

"This guy is saying 'I have a big story for you but I need money' and I told him the UPI doesn't pay for stories.  I suggested he call some fairly large newspapers in the East which I knew would be closed anyway.   Well, he called back awhile later saying 'no one's answering'.  I said well, what's the story and he said 'Elvis Presley is gonna get married a the Aladdin Hotel.'" (Interview with Myram Borders, 2003)

"So I went out to the Aladdin and started wandering around the hallways, kind of seeing any indication of a wedding, which I couldn't and the security guards thought I was a hooker, trying to go from room to room or something.  They were trying to chase me out of the hotel all the time and all I was doing was walking up and down hallways.  Finally, about 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning I saw one of the Nevada Supreme Court Justices, David Zenoff, walk into the hotel and I thought 'it's true'.  I asked him why he was there and he said 'I'm gonna marry Elvis Presley'." (Interview with Myram Border, 2003).

How had Elvis come to choose the Aladdin as the spot for his nuptials?  He could have been married at any hotel any town or even the Little Church of the West which was famous for its celebrity clientele.  Well, Presley and Prell, according to George Stamos, had a long-time friendship that dated back to the 1950s.  Though Presley never appeared at a Prell hotel, he was often seen in the Casbah Lounge at the Sahara during the years it played host to Louis Prima and his band, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys and many others.

According to Paula Clark, no expense was spared on the Presley wedding.  "Colonel Parker gave us instructions to use 'unlimited funds' in preparing the wedding and reception.  To miss the crowds, Prell had arranged for them to get their license down at the County Courthouse at 2:00 am.  Just before the wedding, Clark realized that there were no provisions for the press and a ballroom was quickly converted complete with donuts and coffee.

As  100 friends, family and a bevy of writers and photographers gathered to watch the King of Rock and Roll marry Priscilla, Myram Borders' story of the impending wedding hit the wire.  She had scooped them all.

Jackie Mason was keeping the Bagdad Theater filled but Prell wanted something more for the early morning hours.  Hotel publicist Dick Kanellis found Rusty Warren, a female comedienne who specialized in risqué humor.  Management was worried at the reaction audiences might have to her material.  Her opening night success put all their worries to rest.

Her name went up on the revolving marquee and the crowds poured in.

Another comedian that Prell signed was Redd Foxx.  Up to this point, Foxx had not yet played the Strip which would become his home in later years.  He also coaxed rock and roll legend Little Richard out of retirement and he packed the house and danced on the tables. 

Prell had big plans for the Aladdin that included a 36-story tower that would contain 700 new rooms and VIP Suites.  He planned a 750-seat convention area that was to be located on the top floor.  But, according to Stamos, funding for this ambitious project was not forthcoming and the additions never materialized.

Then fate intervened.  Prell was felled by a stroke in 1968 which forced him into retirement for good.  The hotel was put up for sale and it, like others before it, was bought by Parvin-Dohrmann, the Los Angeles based interior furnishings company. 

The deal was complex according to George Stamos.  It included a transfer of stock between Parvin-Dohrmann,  who owned the Fremont Hotel downtown and who would later purchase the Stardust Hotel,  and the Prell Hotel Company.  Over 70,000 shares of Parvin-Dohrmann stock were exchanged for all the outstanding Aladdin stock.  While there were no major personnel changes, Ed Levinson was brought in from the Fremont to manage the hotel.

Parvin-Dohrmann did not own the property for long.  On December 30, 1971 the hotel was once again sold to a group of investors that included local businessman Sam Diamond and other partners who would come into conflict with the Nevada Gaming Board.

But as the 1960s came to an end, the future was looking bright for the Aladdin Hotel.

The Wedding Party

The Ice Cream Chair Sign

Special Thanks to RoadsidePictures, Carey Burke, Myram Borders and Brian Leming 

UP NEXT:

DARK DAYS AT THE ALADDIN

THE TEAMSTERS AND THE MOB INVOLVEMENT

THE THEATER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

AND MORE! 

Unlike the majority of visionaries that were lured to Las Vegas with ideas of casino/hotels, New York broker, Edwin Lowe, had a different vision.  He wanted to build a hotel featuring an understated country club atmosphere in elegant surroundings.  This all sounded great but he was about 40 years ahead in his thinking.

Not knowing that he was ahead of his time, Lowe built an English Tudor-style hotel and called it the TallyHo!  While King Henry the VIII likely would have felt right at home, it was 1962 and the Las Vegas Strip was anything but to the manor born.

Lowe believed that there was a sizeable number of tourists who liked to vacation in Las Vegas, not to gamble, but because of the weather and outdoor activities available around Southern Nevada.  (Like I said, he was ahead of his time).  Lowe had earned his money as a toy-maker in New York.  He was friendly with the Canadian couple who had invented a game called "Yacht Game".  Lowe saw the potential behind the game and bought the rights.  He repackaged the game and renamed it, Yahtzee.

Because of this belief, Lowe envisioned a hotel without the one thing every other hotel on the Las Vegas Strip had - a casino!

Construction began in the winter of 1962 with an opening date of February, 1963.  The TallyHo, according to our good friend Alan Hess, had leaded windows, gables and half-timbering.  With a curled hunting horn as its symbol, the hotel opened on schedule. Unfortunately, it failed within the year.  The owners, now including local attorney and one-time lawyer for Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Louis Weiner, sold the floundering property to a group of businessmen from Kokomo, Indiana who headed a realty firm.  One of their popular properties was called King's Crown and they thought one in Las Vegas might be their salvation.

The new owners opened the "King's Crown Tallyho" on New Years Eve, 1964.  Like the previous owners, they set out to prove that a casino was not necessary to the success of a hotel in Las Vegas.  The property contained 450 rooms, including 32 villas, a par-54 nine-hole golf course, four swimming pools and six specialty restaurants including the Polo Lounge and Sommelier Room.

Despite the best of ideas, the hotel failed within six months.  A group of Las Vegas businessmen headed by Edward Nealis sought to buy the property but they were denied a gaming license by the Nevada Gaming Commission and the sale was cancelled.  The other bid for the property came with a $400,000 check to be used as a down payment.  The owners were ecstatic until it was discovered the check was drawn on a non-existant British bank.

The little hotel was put back up on the auction block and remained closed. 

But on the horizon was a white knight, schooled in how to run a successful hotel and casino in Las Vegas.  Milton Prell, who had been one of the original owners of the Sahara Hotel and had steered that hotel to some of its biggest moments had his eye on the property.

Brighter days were ahead for the Tallyho but not before it underwent a complete make-over.

UP NEXT:

THE TALLYHO BECOMES THE ALADDIN

THE STORY OF THE NEON SIGN 

During the Glick/Rosenthal regime at the Stardust, in 1977, the hotel underwent a renovation.  The galactic theme was abandoned though according to Alan Hess "the roadside sign remained, and the facade was covered with animated red and blue neon tubing and trimmed with mirrored finish facets."

A new porte-cochere was built and illuminated with a thousand small incandescent bulbs. This trend would continue when the Sands updated their porte-cochere as well.

The interior was modernized, too.  

Bobby Berosini and his Orangutans were hired to replace Siegfried and Roy in the Lido show.  His act consisted of three orangutans and two chimpanzees.  Like Siegfried and Roy, he had prominent billing on the marquee and on the show programs.  According to Rinella and Weatherford, the "little primates brought an air of levity and, some say, much needed comic relief to the show."

Berosini, who had been born Bohumil Gerousek in Czechoslovakia, came from a family of circus performers.  He had trained his primates and included gestures designed "to poke fun at their human audience as well as Berosini himself."

"You have to make sure everything they do is perceived as fun, not work and never give them a task to perform that they will come to resent after awhile." Berosini told Las Vegas Review Journal's Pete Mikla shortly after joining the Lido.

Outdoors, there were four tennis courts open daily from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.  There was no fee and the entrance was located near the Camperland RV park.  You could rent a racquet for $1.00.

When Rosenthal was finally banned from the casino and the Boyds took over, Scotty Schletter became the manager of the Race and Sports Book. 

In 1988, the Boyds spent $50 million renovating the interior of the hotel.  In 1991, they added the 32-story purple tower "which were very modern rooms at the time."  The old garden-style rooms were still on the property and history buffs loved walking around the hotel looking for remnants of the Royal Nevada and pieces of the original Stardust building.

Berosini and his orangutans reinvigorated the Lido Show.  Unfortunately, a video was released that showed Berosini beating one of the orangutans.  Berosini claimed that the tape had been doctored but it led the nightly news for weeks.  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued Berosini over his treatment of the animals.  Berosini ended up leaving the Lido due to all the bad publicity.

By the early 1990s, the Lido show had been running for almost thirty years and was losing its edge.  Over the years there had been a few mishaps on stage.  In one of the versions of the Lido,  showgirls and dancers paraded on stage in medieval costumes and then would go sit in a box with other cast members.  Two male performers would then appear on horseback to entertain the cast members in the box.  One night there was a replacement for one of the horses.  The horse was to run around a partition on the stage.  This particular night the horse slipped on the concrete backstage.  There was a long table in the showroom, perpendicular to the stage.  "It plowed into the table.  It got to the end of the table and stood up.  Then the horse ran up the center aisle." (Source, showgirl Rena Warden).

On another night, a performer named Gloria Tiffany rode down from the rafters on a large disc.  She slid off the disc and onto a guest table.  A guest was hurt and so was Tiffany.  According to Warden, "You could see an imprint of a Stardust ashtray on her thigh.  You could see the little part where the cigarette goes." 

The Boyds decided that it was time to bring an era to an end.  The Lido had its final performance on February 28th, 1991.  In its place would be a new show for a new audience, "Enter the Night".  Boyd executive Robert Boughner explained the plans for the new revue to journalist Michael Paskevich:

"It's not going to look like the old typical burlesque or vaudeville format where it's production number, curtain act, production number, curtain act."

Ted Lorenz, a newcomer to the Las Vegas Strip, sold Boyd on the idea of a showgirl revue with a Broadway sensibility.  Lip synching was out and headset mics were in.  "We're committed to real singers, singing real songs and real dancers dancing." he told the Las Vegas Review Journal (Source, "The Stardust of Yesterday")

"Enter the Night" had a 62 member cast and cost $10 million.  It required a complete overhaul of the showroom's lighting and sound system as well as new upholstery for the booths.  It's one link to the Lido past, it included Bobby Berosini and his performing orangutans. 

The show opened in August 1991 to mixed reviews.  Reporter Paskevich "found it an awkward mix.  By updating the production show genre with Broadway style theatrics, producer Ted Lorenz and company have come up with the best show of the year." (Source, "The Stardust of Yesteryear")  The awkwardness came from Berosini.  His act "just doesn't mesh with the contemporary, stylized look of the rest of the show.  Depending upon your viewpoint, Berosini and his furry buddies either lift the affair with welcome humor or nearly wreck it in a 27-minute tour de force of bad taste."  (Source, "The Stardust of Yesterday").

Berosini left the show over the furor created by animal rights activists.

Also in 1991, in a marketing idea that left mid-century modern fans, neon fans and Classic Las Vegas fans scratching their heads, the Jetson Space Age lettering on the roadside sign, letters that had been a part of the hotel's signature since it had opened over thirty years earlier, was replaced by a bland Helvetica script.

The hotel had over 100,000 square feet of casino space that included 73 gaming tables, 1,950 slot, keno and video poker machines.  The Race and Sports Book was still a popular destination for bettors.  It now included over 2,100 guest rooms, two landscaped swimming pools (one the original Royal Nevada pool), an athletic club and a shopping mall that included Ethel M's Chocolates, Marshall Russo's as well as a beauty and barber shop. 

The Convention Center was 2,500 square feet and could accommodate meetings, conferences and dinners for up to 2,000 people.  The Old-Timers Annual Dinner was held there, celebrating Las Vegans who had lived in town for more than 30 years.

In 1993, long-time Las Vegan Sam Boyd died.  His son, William, who had grown up in Las Vegas, had a law degree and gave up a lucrative practise to join the family business, became the head of Boyd Gaming. 

In 1995, Martin Scorsese's film "Casino" was released.  Based on Nick Peliggi's best-selling book, it was a fictional account of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and the events that had brought the hotel down.  Though the story was about the Stardust, it was filmed at the Riviera because that hotel had the more vintage 1970s look that Scorsese needed. 

"Enter the Night" was ahead of the curve for the first few years.  One of the best numbers, a version of Robert Palmer's "Some Like it Hot" exploded with crimson plumage, cheeky choreography and pyrotechnics according to critic Mike Weatherford "that vindicated the producer's vision".

But a new era was dawning on the Las Vegas Strip.  The Cirque de Soliel was wildly popular and staged limited run shows in Los Angeles, New York and around the globe.  They were looking for a permanent home in the States when Steve Wynn hired them to create Mystere for his Treasure Island Hotel.

"Enter the Night" held its own for the most part throughout the decade.  But like the hotel itself, with the coming of the 21st Century, it began to seem like a dinosaur compared to the luxurious resorts such as the Venetian, the Bellagio and others that were quickly becoming the status quo of the new Las Vegas Strip.

"Enter the Night" closed in December 1999 after 4,435 performances.  Ice skater Burt Lancon, who had performed in both the Lido and "Enter" told the press "I'm a bit nostalgic, a bit sad.  I'm 39 and at that age Spandex is a privilege not a right.  It's the end of a grand era". (Source, "The Stardust of Yesterday").

As the turn of the century got closer, the Boyds approached famed Las Vegas legend Wayne Newton about appearing in his own theater.  Newton agreed to the idea and signed a 40 week contract.  The Cafe Continental was renamed the Wayne Newton Theater and the name was added to the marquee.  Newton would appear in the theater 40 weeks a year and would be paid $25 million yearly.

Newton ended his deal at the new MGM Grand where he had been performing since 1996 and he leased out his theater in Branson, Missouri. 

To usher in the new century, the Boyd Gaming spent $23 million on renovations that included upgrading guest rooms, the destruction of the old garden-style rooms that had been part of the Stardust property (the garden style rooms of the Royal Nevada remained), a 340 seat buffet-style dining room and refurbishment of the roadside sign.  They also added a 4,000 square foot multi-use pavilion.

Newton opened on New Year's Eve weekend in 1999.  He was 57 years old and had been battling vocal problems for the past decade.  But ever the old-time performer, Newton did not let his vocal troubles deter him from putting on a classic era show.  When Newton wasn't performing in his theater, Blood Sweat and Tears, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr, the Manhattan Transfer, the O-Jays and Harold Melvin's Blue Notes with Cuba Gooding, Sr were showcased.

After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Bob Hope, who had been the face of the USO since World War II. was not able to continue in his duties due to his age and illness.  Newton was asked to take over for Hope.  With the blessing of Boyd Gaming, Newton spent less time performing in Las Vegas and more time entertaining the troops overseas.  In the aftermath of the attacks, Las Vegas hotels had declining profits as Americans and international customers were less inclined to travel in the months after the attacks.  Boyd Gaming registered an operating loss of $1.2 million.  They were not alone.

Boyd Gaming looked at the performing landscape of the Strip where the Cirque de Soleil was expanding into more and more hotels.  Also very popular at the time were magicians with Siegfried and Roy anchoring their own theater at the Mirage, Lance Burton at the Luxor and Dirk Arthur at the Union Plaza.  Boyd Gaming saw a need that wasn't being met due to the Cirquification of various showrooms.  Not wanting to compete with the Cirque due to costs, Boyd Gaming went after the Classic Las Vegas entertainers who were still drawing good audiences, performers like Don Rickles, Debbie Reynolds, Bob Newhart, Tim Conway and Harvey Korman.

The gamble paid off as the Stardust became the one place on the Strip catering to the crowd that still loved Classic Las Vegas.  It was becoming increasingly hard to find those places and those entertainers as the Strip was undergoing a transformation in the mega-resort era.  People were now coming to Las Vegas more for shopping and dining reasons than gaming.  Ultra-Lounges and the new hip crowd that had not grown up with the Strip were the target audience and many long-time, middle class visitors began to fill the pinch as room rates escalated.

The Stardust catered to those who wanted the Classic experience at the Classic prices.  Giant billboards along I-15 touted Wayne Newton, $59 a night rooms and the return of the signature space age font in advertising to drivers coming from Southern California. 

On a side note, on January 3rd, 2002, Juan Garcia better know to his fans as Esquivel! who had been a featured performer at the Stardust Lounge for many years passed away at his home in Mexico.  He was 83.  Donn Arden who had done so much to revolutionize the showroom revue had passed away in 1994.

In 2004, Boyd Gaming and the Coast Casinos owned by local gaming family scion Michael Gaughan entered into an agreement that allowed the Coast Casinos to merge with Boyd Gaming.  Boyd Gaming gained new properties specifically the Gold Coast, the Orleans, the Suncoast and the Barbary Coast but it also assumed $460 million of Coast Casinos debt as well.

Once the agreement was in place Boyd Gaming owned The Stardust, Sam's Town, the Eldorado, Joker's Wild (both in Henderson), the California Hotel, Fremont Hotel and Main Street Station in addition to the Coast Properties.  In Atlantic City they were partnered with the MGM/Mirage on the Borgata Hotel and Casino. 

The hotel made political news in 2004 when its new revue Havana Night Club (financially backed by Siegfried and Roy) performers exit visas were delayed.  When the show finally opened, in the audience that night were Siegfried and Roy.  Roy Horn was making his first appearance since the almost fatal tiger attack in October 2003.    The revue played until February 2006.  Three months before the show was set to close, all 43 performers asked for political asylum rather than return to Cuba. 

But the changing landscape of the Strip and the escalating cost of prime real-estate combined with the opening of Steve Wynn's new mega-resort, Wynn Las Vegas, heralded that the changes that had engulfed the middle and southern ends of the Strip were now coming to the northern end.  As Turnberry Towers were added and Wynn began building Encore and Sheldon Adelson began building the Palazzo tower of the Venetian, Boyd Gaming saw the writing on the wall.

Las Vegas had high-rise fever.  MGM CityCenter was going strong and would ultimately be a community within a community.  The older properties were struggling to keep up.  The Stardust sat on some of the biggest prime real-estate on the whole Strip.

On January 4th, 2006, Boyd Gaming announced the inevitable.  They were going to tear down the Stardust and in its place would rise Echelon Place.  Echelon Place would be a $4 million mixed-use resort that would utilize the 63 acres that had been the Stardust.  Boyd Gaming also bought the property next door where the little Westward Ho and Slots-o-Fun had once been.  The new resort would incluce 5,300 rooms, 1 million square feet of convention space, 140,000 square feet of casino space and in acknowledging the new trend of the Las Vegas tourist, 350,000 square feet of retail store space.  In terms of cost and size, it is second only to CityCenter.

They also announced that the hotel would close in early November 2006 and that classic-era performers Steve Lawrence and Edyie Gorme, who had closed the wonderful Circus Maximus showroom at Caesars Palace, would close out the Wayne Newton theater.

Boyd Gaming will be the sole owner and will mainly operate the new resort but the company plans on bringing in separate well-established companies to run the hotels, restaurants, ultra-lounges and some of the entertainment.  Echelon Place will be developed in phases.  The 5,300 guest rooms will be spread out over 1 major hotel tower and 3 boutique hotels.  Boyd Gaming will own and operate the main hotel tower, Echelon Resort (we hope this is a working title) that will include 2,600 room tower and a smaller 700 all-suite tower.  Both hotels will connect with the public areas as well as the casino. 

They have entered into a agreement with Shangri-Lai Hotels and Resorts to operate the Shangri-Lai Hotel, Las Vegas.  This boutique hotel will include 400 guest rooms and suites, a 20,000 square space spa and two restaurants.  They also have inked deals with the Morgans Hotel Group for the construction of two smaller hotels within Echelon Place.  To be called the Delano and the Mondrian, they will cost $700 million and be managed by the Morgans group.  Boyd Gaming is contributing the land for these hotels.  Morgans will contribute $97.5, according to public documents, in cash.

In addition there will a 4,000 seat theater with stadium seating for concerts and production shows.  There will be a 1,500 seat theater for smaller productions.  

Also on the property (as if that wasn't enough) will be the Las Vegas ExpoCenter at Echelon Place.  This will feature 650,000 square feet of exhibit space with an additional 175,000 square feet of meeting and conference space.  Combined with the meeting facility planned for Echelon Resort (we suspect that Echelon Resort will undergo a name change so that guests don't get confused by all the different Echelons) this will bring the Convention facilities to over 1 million square feet and this is just on one property!

In addition there will be parking garages near all major parts of the resorts.  Ultimately there will be parking for nearly 8,000 cars and valet service at each garage.  Boyd Gaming is talking with various companies about a 50-50 joint venture in the giant retail space being called Echelon Promenade. 

After moving the date a couple of times, the Stardust closed her doors forever on November 1st, 2006.  Two and a half weeks later one of the biggest casino/hotel auctions was held.  It took five days to complete.  Everything from plasma televisions to serving ware to interior neon signage and more was auctioned off.  One day was devoted to memorabilia, photos, graphics, paintings, chandeliers and such.  Another day was devoted to the restaurant equipment.  The last day was devoted to the landscaping, maintenance, generators and boilers along with the laundry facilities and room furnishings.

Head of Publicity and Marketing, Jim Seagrave, donated the historical photo displays created for the hotel's 50th anniversary to the Nevada State Museum.  He also donated boxes of files, a mock-up of the roadside sign and a mock up of the rocket from the famous photo of the Lido Showgirls.

Boyd Gaming donated the wonderful Roadside signage to the Neon Museum and helped pay for the cost of dismantling the sign and moving it to the museum's sign boneyard.  The museum also has the Space Age letters so someday perhaps they can be reunited with the sign. 

Amid a big celebration, the first since 9/11, the Stardust Hotel was demolished on March 3, 2007 at 2:33 am.

Construction on Echelon Place is progressing.  One of the truly great sights to see right now is when you are traveling east on Desert Inn where the arterial rises, you can look to your left where the Stardust used to be and get of glimpse of what the Las Vegas Strip looked like over 30 years ago when it was smaller and geared towards the automobile.  You can see the Circus Circus sign, all the  additions to the Riviera, the Peppermill and more.  Unfortunately, it does not lend itself to a photo op as the shoulder is not really wide enough, but if you take this trip at twilight time for a brief moment it is like being in a time machine.

No more space age lettering

The garden-style rooms from the Royal Nevada

The sign comes down

In the Neon Boneyard

The Remains of the day

Special thanks to RoadsidePictures and LeavingLV for allowing us to use these images. 

Also if you love the Stardust and you love the Classic Las Vegas imagery, we encourage you to check out the wondeful book by Heidi Knapp Rinella and Mike Weatherford "The Stardust of Yesterday" available from Stephens Press.

UP NEXT:

THE ALADDIN HOTEL:

FIRST THE TALLY HO! AND THEN THE ALADDIN

THE NEON SIGN, THE MOB AND MORE 

The Stardust Hotel entered the 1970s still riding high from the lure of the Lido de Paris, the fine dining and the reasonable room rates. Her roadside neon sign had become another Las Vegas Strip icon and as the 1970s began, no one had a sense of the dark days that would engulf the hotel by the end of the decade. Sifting through a great deal of Rosenthal mythology (and likewise Spilotro and Mob mythology) is not as easy as it sounds. There is a great deal of misinformation about this important era not only in print but throughout the web.

For clarification's sake, the Sheriff during this era was Ralph Lamb, not Frank, not Floyd, not Darwin. Floyd and Darwin were Ralph's brothers, I have no idea who Frank Lamb was but a Rosenthal site claims that Frank Lamb was the Sheriff. That is wrong.

But before all that darkness began falling, the hotel had some high moments. In mid-1970, a Moon Rock was displayed in the Convention Center at the hotel. Congressman Gross of Iowa, it seems, was not amused that the Moon Rock was on display in a casino. The Stardust Convention Center was far removed from the Casino but that made no nevermind when publicity can be made. This, of course, was the era where anything associated with Las Vegas was tainted by default. Las Vegas was known as a sinner's paradise, an adult Disneyland, where people went to gamble and drink and do things "they would never at home". A Moon Rock on display in Sin City, what was the world coming to? The Moon Rock, it turned out, was there because NASA was holding a conference at the hotel.

While the Rock was on display, the public was invited to come and take a look at it. School children from around Clark County and Southern Nevada came by school bus to see the unique item brought back the Apollo astronauts.

In June, 1973 the Stardust Camperland opened with spaces for 4,000 RVs.

By now the Stardust was one of the biggest resorts in the world. It had its own power plant, its Convention Center was 32,000 square feet. its housekeeping department was responsible for changing 11,000 sheets and pillow-cases a day and so the hotel had its laundry facilities. The Palm Restaurant alone served over 40,000 meals a week. There was a print shop that kept the hotel supplied in menus, brochures, stationary and other printed material.

Into all of this stepped Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. In 1972, the Argent Corporation bought the Stardust from Parvin-Dohrmann/Recrion. As part of the deal, Recrion also sold Argent the Fremont Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. The president of Argent was a young Los Angeles developer, Allen Glick. Glick had recently purchased the Hacienda Hotel as well.

According to authors Heidi Rinella and Mike Weatherford in their book "The Stardust of Yesterday", Glick was connected from the beginning with the Central States Pension Fund (the Teamsters) and the Chicago mob. According to author Jeff Burbank, Glick had obtained a $67.2 million loan from the Teamster's Pension fund to buy both the Fremont and the Stardust. James "Jimmy" Hoffa was the head of the Teamsters Union and oversaw the secretly approved loans to Las Vegas Hotels. Hoffa received kickbacks on the loans that he arranged the for organized crime members. These "owners" in turn, used "front" men like Rosenthal to shield themselves from the Nevada Gaming Commission and the Feds all the while skimming millions for themselves from the gaming operations.

Rosenthal had his own connections to the Chicago crime syndicate and had come to Las Vegas in 1971 to work as a floor man at the Stardust. He was a professional gambler with a reputation for race and sports betting. He had promised his wife, Geri, a former showgirl at the Tropicana, that she could have "the normal life" she wanted and his "bookmaking" lifestyle did not fit into her plans of what a normal life was.

Once Glick took over control of the hotel, the men in Chicago "suggested" that Rosenthal be promoted. Glick and Rosenthal repeatedly butted heads and were at odds with one another. Both men thought they were in charge of running the hotel. It no doubt came as a surprise to Glick when he was told that Rosenthal was actually in charge of the daily running of the hotel as far as Chicago was concerned.

Rosenthal had a brush with the Feds in 1971 when he was one of five men indicted on federal charges for illegally using telephones for interstate betting. (Source, "The Stardust of Yesterday".) So much for normal living. The case was dismissed in 1975 when the judge ruled that the wiretap evidence was illegally obtained.

At the Stardust, Rosenthal opened the first Race and Sports Book in a casino. Prior to that, there were Race Books in town such as Santa Anita's further up the Strip and Leroy's Sports Book downtown next to the Pioneer Club. But Rosenthal was the first to incorporate the idea into a casino.

The Race and Sports Book was 8,000 square feet and it was filled with oversized television sets, monitor walls, individual betting and cubicles all now standard in hotels up and down the Strip but in 1975 it was revolutionary.

Rosenthal pushed to be given a gaming license by the Nevada Gaming Commission but was in for a rude shock.  In January, 1976 the Commission informed Glick that Rosenthal, due to his background, could not be licensed to run casinos.   Glick thought perhaps this would help him to regain control of the hotel but Rosenthal proved to be not only egotistical but arrogant as well.  He fought with the Gaming Commission for the rest of the year over the issue of licensing.

In the meantime, to help with PR campaign, he began a local, late-night television show that was broadcast from the hotel.  Called "The Frank Rosenthal Show" it featured Rosenthal interviewing Strip celebrities and also featured singers and dancers  as well.  It also gave Rosenthal a pulpit to rail against the Gaming Commission and its members.  The show was embarrassingly bad and noted mainly for the entertainers interviewed on the show including Frank Sinatra and Wayne Newton.

Unable to get a gaming license, Rosenthal would also have to turn over his duties of running the hotel.  Instead, Rosenthal gave himself the title of Food and Beverage Services and then Entertainment Director.  It was as Entertainment Director that he claims to have stolen Siegfried and Roy away from the original MGM Grand. 

According to Rosenthal he was the one who noticed that the duo's contract with the rival MGM Grand Hotel's "Hallulejah Hollywood!" which was produced by Donn Arden was about to expire.  He claims to have offered Bernie Yuman, then just a young man with ambitions, $500 if Yuman could deliver the magic duo to Rosenthal's office.  According to Rosenthal, Yuman took the bait. (Source, Insider Viewpoint of Las Vegas and "The Stardust of Yesterday").  

According to Yuman, he was concerned about Siegfried and Roy returning to the Stardust as the "Hallelujah Hollywood!" show had put a major dent in the Lido de Paris' audience.  Yuman claims that Rosenthal came to him hoping to showcase the two young magicians and make them the stars of the new Lido. (Source, "Siegfried and Roy: Mastering the Impossible" and "The Stardust of Yesterday").

The two stories do match up describing Yuman as crashing Siegfried and Roy's dressing room.  He was not yet their manager but wanted to be.  He talked them in to joining him for a meeting with Rosenthal at the Stardust the next day.

By the time the meeting was over, "it was historic in every way" Yuman would later recall,  Siegfried and Roy were to be given 33 minutes on-stage, which was, according to Yuman, "the equivalent of a show within a show" as well as 100% star billing equal to the title of the show.  Yuman became Siegfried and Roy's manager that day and has remained in that position ever since.  Rosenthal says that the fancy dressing rooms and the accommodations for the animals was the "easy part".  The star billing was a much tougher sell to the Lido producers but in the end they agreed to it. (Source, "Siegfried and Roy: Mastering the Impossible" and "The Stardust of Yesterday").

Thus, the duo who had started as part of the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana and then joined the Lido de Paris under Donn Arden's watch and had followed Arden to the MGM Grand for "Hallulejah Hollywood!" bolted to begin shaping the show that would make them world famous.  From 1978 to 1981, they headlined the Lido de Paris before finally bolting the Stardust for a new home at the Frontier.

In the late 1970s, the Nevada Gaming Commission raided the Stardust Hotel's counting room and uncovered a skim worth $7 million from slot machines in just one year.

Rosenthal still fought with the Gaming Commission.  Watching news footage of that era, you can see Rosenthal trying to argue with Commissioner Harry Reid in front of news reporters.  Reid does not take the bait and Rosenthal, in a white suit and wide-brimmed matching hat, is reduced to sputtering. 

The outfits in Chicago and Kansas City were said to be incensed over not just the uncovering of the skim but the wild theatrics and press notoriety that not only Rosenthal was attracting but that Spilotro was getting as well.  The men behind the power favored as much anonymity as possible and did not like attention being drawn to them and their holdings.

It was an incredible time in Las Vegas history.  For a town that had so long looked the other way in terms of "front men", secret hotel ownership and skimming, that era was coming to close as the local officials worked with the FBI, the Justice Department and the US Attorney's Office to officially take control back from the shadows. (source, Personal interviews with news reporters Jane Anne Morrison and Gwen Castaldi as well as Personal Interviews with U.S. Attorney, Mahlon Brown, Jr).

In 1979, the Nevada Gaming Commission permanently denied Rosenthal's licensing requests.  Glick was claiming innocence regarding the skimming.  As Rosenthal had run the hotel for the "secret" interests, Glick maintained, he had no knowledge of the skimming that had occurred under his ownership.

By the time the investigation was finished it was estimated that approximately $15 million had been skimmed from the Stardust alone.  The  money was traced to Kansas City.  The Feds indicted conspirators in Kansas City, Chicago and elsewhere.  It is believed that Rosenthal ran the skimming operation for crime syndicates in Kansas City, Chicago and Milwaukee.  Rosenthal was ultimately banned for life from entering Nevada casinos. (Source, author Jeff Burbank). 

By the time the smoke cleared, other "hotels up and down the Strip were under investigation" according to then US Attorney Mahlon Brown, Jr.  But one thing was evident, Argent Corporation had to give up control of its casinos.

The Gaming Commission tapped Al Sachs and local businessman  Herb Tobman to run the hotel.  Both had long connections to the hotel during the Parvin-Dohrmann days and both were well-known within the community and well-respected.

But Rosenthal continued to garner bad press.  In 1982, he was leaving the Tony Roma's restaurant on East Sahara  when his car blew up.  The only thing that saved his life was the model of Cadillac he was driving.  The 11:00 news ran footage of Rosenthal, bleeding from his face and most of clothes blown off, being put a stretcher and whisked, fittingly enough, to nearby Sunrise Hospital.  Reporter Myram Borders, who saw the explosion and rushed to the scene, says that "Rosenthal kept saying "they're trying to kill me" and I kept asking who, who and that's when he shut up." (Source, personal interview). 

Later that year, his wife Geri died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles amid rumors of an affair with Tony Spilotro. 

Everyday it seemed, more stories of Rosenthal and Spilotro led the news along with crackdowns at the Tropicana and other hotels. 

In 1984, another skimming scandal erupted.  The Gaming Commission removed Sachs and Tobman from management of the hotel and fined them $3.5 million - a state record- though neither were charged with knowledge of the skim.

It was time for the Gaming Commission to find a respectable manager for the  Argent properties.  The Gaming Commission approached Sam and Bill Boyd.  Sam Boyd had come to Las Vegas in the 1940s.  He and his wife had raised their family here and Sam, who had started at the El Cortez, had built a gaming empire that included partial ownership of the Union Plaza, the California Hotel, Sam's Town as well as the El Dorado and the Joker's Wild in Henderson.

The Gaming Commission asked the Boyds to manage the Stardust and Fremont Hotels casinos.  For the time being, the Gaming Commission would allow Argent to run the non-gaming parts of the hotel.  But the two companies were not a good mix.  Argent was less than cooperative on booking rooms.  They finally came around but not before Sam Boyd complained to the Gaming Commission.  When asked what would improve the situation for next time, Boyd suggested that the monies earned by the casinos be held in an escrow account instead of being paid to the owner of record, in this case Argent, whose license had been revoked.  The Gaming Commission took the suggestion under advisement and later implemented the idea.

Just before Christmas, 1983, federal agents entered the Stardust Hotel and fired just about everybody. 

Boyd Gaming ran the casino for almost a year when they were approached by an Argent attorney about buying the property.  On February 25th, 1985 Boyd Gaming bought the Stardust and Fremont Hotels.  Argent Corporation was officially out of the Las Vegas resort business and the Mob was officially out of those hotels. 

The dark days at the Stardust were over but an uncertain but more stable future was ahead. 

The Frank Rosenthal Show with Frank Sinatra

Siegfried and Roy and friend

Tony and Nancy Spilotro (courtesy of the LVRJ) 

UP NEXT:

THE STARDUST AFTER THE MOB!

ENTER THE NIGHT, WAYNE NEWTON

AND MORE!

IT'S ALL HERE IN THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE

LAS VEGAS STRIP HOTELS! 

By the early 1960s the Las Vegas Strip was undergoing some changes. The Old West theme that had been part of Las Vegas and part of the lure of the original two resorts, the El Rancho Vegas and the Hotel Last Frontier, was quickly being replaced by a more sophisticated and modern theme. As if to signal the end of that era, the El Rancho Vegas suffered a devastating fire on June 17, 1960. With fire trucks and photographers rushing to the scene, the fire roared through the main building.

While the Old West theme might be passing into history, the other resorts on the Strip were keeping architects busy designing new high-rise towers and they were keeping entertainers busy with performing in town multiple times a year.

The Stardust, after a rocky start, was perched to take advantage of the brash, optimistic, can-do spirit that came to symbolize those early years in the decade.

In keeping with the times, the beloved Aku-Aku Restaurant opened in January 1960. Playing on the current rage for all things Polynesian and tiki, the Aku-Aku paid homage to the island cultures of the South Pacific. It was built between the Stardust and the old Royal Nevada. Out front, a neon rimmed shield and giant arrows sign was added along with the giant moai that immediately brought to mind the giant statues on Easter Island and the adventures of Thor Heyerdahl. The word Aku-Aku was from the Easter Islands where they were said to be the guardians of the sacred family caves.

The restaurant cost $620,000 to build and decorate. The opening was a black-tie event that brought out the cream of Las Vegas society and numerous politicians. The moai statues and most of the interiors were created by Eli Hedley who was a self-styled "beachcomber". The drink menu was designed by Donn Beach who was better known as "Don the Beachcomber" and he had his own Polynesian restaurant at the Sahara. The Aku-Aku Gold Cup was served in a "stemmed glass containing its own little bandshell of crushed ice cooling "Mexican Limes." The Savage Island Pearl Cocktail was "especially recommended for the ladies with a genuine pearl in each cocktail." Both would set you back $1.20.

The 1961 edition of the Lido de Paris was just as popular as the previous editions.

"From the ceiling descend platforms, each with a bare-bosomed beauty, standing cool as you please adn before the surprise has caused near-sighted gentlemen to repair their thoughtlessness by putting on glasses, the girls are whisked upward into the rafters." Les Devor writing in the Las Vegas Review Journal as quoted in "The Stardust of Yesterday".

Show Producer Donn Arden and Madame Bluebell were well on their way to creating the Americanized version of the showgirl. Donn Arden was quoted in a 1989 interview saying "There's a certain way a girl can walk, particularly when you're going across the stage. By simply twisting the foot, it swings the pelvis forward which is suggestive and sensual. If you twist right and swing that torso, you get a revolve going in there that's just right. It isn't the way a woman should walk, necessarily. You're selling the pelvis; that's the Arden walk."

The Kim Sisters, a Korean sister act in the vein of the McGuire Sisters, played the Stardust Lounge from 1:00am to 7:00am with six half-hour shows nightly. The girls had been a sensation in South Korea where they had entertained the troops. They were still teen-agers when they came to play Las Vegas as part of the China Doll Revue at the Thunderbird. When that contract expired the sisters took their act to the Stardust where they helped keep the lounge packed nightly.

On January 21st, 1962, an episode of the Ed Sullivan Show"" aired. It had been filmed entirely at the hotel.

By 1963, the hotel boasted 1,300 deluxe, air-conditioned rooms, two swimming pools, free parking that could accommodate 2,500 cars and special facilities for groups ranging from 10 to 1,000 people.

But the hotel needed to expand to keep up with the other resorts on the Strip. In 1964, architect William Tabler designed a nine-story tower. The tower would bring the room count 1,470. Tabler had designed the high-rise tower at the Desert Inn.

In addition, they also added new signage. They placed a neon-rimmed globe atop the galaxy facade. In addition, they replaced their original roadside sign as well. The original, as noted by Alan Hess, "had been informed by the plasticity o the roadside sign tradition, where signs took the forms of boats, cows or frying pans as the occasion demanded." The new sign, designed by Ad-Art and costing $500,000, "suggested something beyond itself. Its form was blurred by a scattering of star shapes around its periphery. It depicted, in fact, a shower of stardust." At night, the sign was animated and light fell from the stars atop the 188-foot sign downwards over the Stardust (still in that wonderful space-age font) name which was emblazed across the middle and then the stars continued to shower downward to the marquee board. It became overnight an iconic image of the famed Las Vegas Strip. It was designed by Paul Miller.

By 1964, over 3.5 million people had seen the Lido show. The 1965 version included a live chariot race, a locomotive crashing into an automobile and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius complete with molten lava.

By 1965, the Justice Department was scrutinizing Moe Dalitz and Wilbur Clark again. They were ordered to explain a series fo complicated financial transactions between the three corporations they were involved with. Clark, who had suffered two major strokes, had sold his stock in both hotels to Dalitz for $2 million in 1964. Both men testified and the matter was soon put to rest with neither being charged.

The hotel employed 1,500 people and beyond its Showroom, Lounge and Restaurants, it offered a full service Beauty Salon, Barber Shop, Burnett's Women's Apparel, the Mens Shop, a Gift Shop and a Greyhound Bus Terminal. The 71-par Championship Golf Course was used by the PGA and the LPGA and had a driving range and Pro Shop as well.

The Stardust International Raceway was home to a 3 mile, "dead-level" track, sort of a crooked figure eight. It had a drag strip, stands, a concession stand and "comfort stations". The track drew famous racers such as "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Al Unser, Bobby Unser and Parnelli Jones.

The Track was opened on September 21, 1965. Actor Lee Marvin was one of the many celebrities photographed at the 1965 Stardust Grand Prix. The Raceway was located in what is now Spring Valley Township in an area from Tropicana Avenue to Flamingo Road and bordered by Rainbow Blvd and Piedmont Blvd. Back then, there was nothing out there except empty desert. Today, it covered with housing developments.

ABC's Wide World of Sports spent some time at the Stardust throughout the 1960s. They covered two special competitions for the World's Invitation High Diving Championship. There were two events featuring nine divers. The divers performed three dives from heights ranging from 80-feet to 100 feet up in the air. The prize was $2,000. Diver John Candler from London, who had placed 7th at the Tokyo Olympics, finished 1st in the World Professional Target Diving Championship. Barney Cipriani of Miami won the High Diving contest.

In November 1965, Cassius Clay made the Stardust his training camp for his upcoming bout at the Las Vegas Convention Center's Rotunda against Floyd Patterson. Patterson had turned the Thunderbird into his training camp.

By 1966, the Stardust was in the middle of the action and one of the most popular hotels on the Strip. Dalitz and his managers had never lost sight of the hotel appealing to the average couple or family on vacation. While other hotels along the boulevard were catering to a more sophisticated crowd, the Stardust had the low-roller market cornered.

In keeping with the times, the Stardust opened Moby Dick, high-end seafood restaurant.

The Convention Facilities were renamed the Stardust Auditorium and a neon SA was added to the front of the old Royal Nevada. The Stardust did good business with conventions hosting everything from Air Conditioning to Polygraphers with MENSA and the Department of Interior thrown in for good measure.

On October 7, 1967 the new Horseman's Park opened. It had a 500 seat, lighted arena, exercise ring, 100 covered stalls, feed facilities and a parking lot that could hold 100 cars. It was home to the American Angus Association's yearly convention as well as Miss Rodeo America and national horse shows.

The hotel had also revamped the Stardust Country Club. Renovations included an expanded Club house, a new Pro Shop, a new Lounge and Card Rooms, a Piano Bar and a restaurant. Members were charged $3.00 for use of the new facilities with guests being charged $6.00. Dues were $60 a year and membership was open to those who lived outside of Clark County as well.

 
Howard Hughes was on a buying spree of Las Vegas Hotels. Having arrived in November, 1966, he had bought the Desert Inn rather than have to move out of the penthouse. Since then he had purchased the Castaways, the Silver Slipper, the New Frontier, the Sands and the Landmark. By 1968, he wanted to add the Stardust to that collection and made an offer to Dalitz and United Hotel for $30.5 million. Dalitz was all for the purchase but George Dickerson and George Von Tobel of the Nevada Gaming Commission were not. They believed that the hotel purchase would violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.  Before the smoke had cleared , the Federal Government and the Justice Department were involved as well.

George Von Tobel, a member of one of the pioneering Las Vegas families, was quoted as saying "I did not wish to see Las Vegas become a company town."  The Gaming Commission prevailed with the Feds and won with their argument that by allowing Hughes to purchase the property, he would be creating a monopoly. Thus, the Stardust stayed out of Hughes' grasp. It was one of the rare times the Federal Government said no to Howard Hughes.

But by 1969, Dalitz and his management team were beginning to think about retirement from the daily running of resorts.  They sold the Stardust to the Parvin Dohrmann Corporation for $15 million.  The Parvin Dohrmann Corporation also assumed $20 million in debt incurred by the hotel.  The Corporation also owned and operated the Fremont Hotel downtown, the Aladdin and briefly controlled the Riviera.  It changed its name to Recrion Corporation shortly after purchasing the Stardust.  The Teamsters Pension Fund loaned Parvin Dohrman $12 million. 

Thus the stage was set for the Stardust to enter the 1970s and one of the darkest times not only in the resort's history but a dark time for the entire Las Vegas Strip.

Donn Arden (with Madame Bluebell) demonstrates the "Arden Walk"

The 1965 sign with its iconic lettering

The Stardust Hotel in the 1970s 

The Garden-Style Rooms 

Special Thanks to UNLV Special Collections , RoadsidePictures and RoadsidePeek for letting us use these images. 

UP NEXT:

Lefty Rosenthal takes over!

Siefried and Roy become headliners!

The Midnight Idol returns to the stage!

And the Feds crack down on the Mob and Skimming!

It's all here at the Brief History of the Las Vegas Strip! 

Having overcome so much, the Stardust finally opened at noon on July 2, 1958.  It offered the Lido de Paris spectacular in the Continental Theater showroom.  It had seating for 700 and the most advanced stage (to date), technologically, on the Strip.  It was said to be the most elaborate stage, second only to Radio City Music Hall.

There was the Chemin-de-Fer Room, Keno, the Ticker Tape Lounge, Casino Bar, the Palm Room Restaurant, Pool Pavilion Cafe, as well as Banquet Rooms and private dining rooms.  It is said that the Stardust introduced Keno to the Strip.

Local firms that worked on the hotel included YESCO, Nevada Electric Company, Southern Nevada Plumbing and Heating, Larkin Plumbing (still in business!), Wilgar Brothers Glass, Western Steel and the Stage Sound and Equipment Company. 

The Interiors were designed by Al Parvin and Company, by now old hands at casino interior design.

In the showroom, John Augustine was the Orchestra Leader. He had come from Los Angeles and the Earl Carrol Theater.  The stage manager was Bill De Angelis.  He was in charge of the rigging of the stage and he had worked at nite clubs all over the country.  His staff consisted of 20 stage hands and seven wardrobe women with Emily Warren as the Head Mistress.

The Stardust also boasted of having the largest private telephone switchboard in Nevada. 

The wonderful neon sign had taken 84 gallons of automobile paint to cover and had over 32,000 feet of wiring, 7,100 feet of neon tubing and 11,000 lamps. 

In the back of the property was a rodeo arena called Horseman's Park.  It consisted of bleachers, 300 stalls, corrals, a lighting system and a judging stand.  It was donated to Dixie College in St. George, Utah in 1972.

The Stardust also offered auto racing.  The Stardust Raceway was a short distance from the hotel, in today what is known as Spring Valley township.  It was a Grand Prix course, Indianapolis-type raceway where cars raced over the circuit.  Unfortunately, it was short lived as it was never a money maker.

Another off-property site was the Stardust Golf Course in the township of Paradise.  Today it is the National Golf Course with the homes around the course designed by the mid-century architecture firm of Palmer and Krisel.

The President of the resort was Jerry Rolston, a prominent Beverly Hills lawyer   There was a gaming school designed to teach casino employees the various aspects and rules of Nevada gaming.

The inaugural show of the Lido de Paris starred Jacqueline Du Bief and featured an ice show, a Neapolitan street scene, a Promenade of European Beauties and a fireworks display from the top of a replica of the Eiffel Tower.  Las Vegas show-goers had not seen anything like at it at the time.  Though the show was created by producers Pierre-Louis Guerin and Rene Fraday at the Lido Club in Paris, the man in charge of the staging and production of the show was the unquestioned master of the stage spectacular, Donn Arden.

Arden had been creating stage fantasies since he was 15.  He loved spectacle, drama and tragedy.  He first staged the sinking of the Titanic for the Lido as well as the San Francisco earthquake, the explosion of the Hindendburg, an explosion of Mt. Fuji and a dam bursting.  He was the first producer in town to take the nudity of Minsky's Burlesque and incorporate into a dramatic setting.  Up till then, Americans had been used to seeing nudity in burlesque and in the bump and grind joints that were scattered about the country.  But Donn Arden took nudity to a whole new level and art form by introducing it as part of a dramatic stage spectacle.  Critics noted that Americans finally seemed to be catching up with their French brethren. C'est Magnifique indeed.

He relied upon the Bluebell dancers and their matron and muse, Margaret Kelly who was known the world over as Madame Bluebell.  Like Arden, she came from Paris at the invitation of hotel management to help create the Lido de Paris for the resort.  She required her dancers to have extensive ballet training, they had to be 5'8 or taller and they had to be long-legged and beautiful.

"Finding girls who fulfill these pre-requisites is extremely difficult." she once said.  "Since non of the famous ballet companies hire tall girls, statuesque dancers do not usually continue their ballet training past their teens."  She had a school in London and one in Paris where European teen-aged girls flocked to in hopes of being selected to study under her critical eye.

The Unions were strict about the number of European performers and dancers who could be allowed to dance in a show. 

The costumes were all made in Paris and rented at a cost of $600,000 to avoid "the 40% duty that would be imposed if they were bought outright and shipped to Las Vegas."  George Stamos, 1979. 

The Starlight Lounge was soon the new "in" spot.  It sat 400 patrons and offered continuous entertainment from dusk to dawn.  Playing the stage in those early years were Esquivel (yes, seriously), the Kim Sisters, Don Cornell, Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys (in between arguments with Jack Entratter at the Sands) and probably the most famous, the Irish Show Band.  The most consistent crowd pleaser was Lelani Kele's Hawaiian Revue. 

In August 1958, John and Rella Factor requested the Federal Court to give them a break on payment of the Stardust's huge debt.  Under the court approved plan, the Factor's put over $4 million into the operation of the resort.  The Factor's were paying $75,000 a month in payments.  They wanted the courts to lower the payment to $25,000 a month for the next 12 months.  The hotel was still over $100,000 in debt due to Cornero's playing and loose with investors money.

A month later, it was formally announced that Moe Dalitz would take over the entire resort from all its present owners.  It was also announced that United Hotels Corporation was negotiating to lease the ill-fated Royal Nevada and use the space for convention facilities.  With the garden-style rooms from the Royal Nevada, it brought the room total for the Stardust up to 1,300 and two pools.

According to Wilbur Clark, more than 800,000 people saw the Lido de Paris that first year.  Other hotels were paying attention and soon they, too, had showroom spectaculars.  But for many years to come, the Lido outshone them all.   

The 1960s were on the horizon and the new owners had big plans.  A polynesian restaurant would become one of the most beloved watering holes in town and its large Tiki God would add to the architectural vernacular of the day.  The Lido showed no signs of diminishing appeal and the future looked bright.

The Stardust was ready to take its place among the successful resorts of the Strip. 

Special thanks to RoamingVegas for letting us use this image. 

UP NEXT:

MORE STARDUST HOTEL HISTORY:

1960S, LIDO DE PARIS, THE MOB AND MORE!!! 

The Stardust Hotel came to life with the help of organized crime money, it grew up and in the 1970s again was intertwined with organized crime money and associates that almost brought the hotel down. It's a lively story of underworld figures and redemption. This is the brief history of the Stardust, the hotel that promised the galaxy under its roof.

Tony Cornero was a familiar figure in Las Vegas. He and his brother had come to town in the 1930s after gambling had been re-legalized. They had started the Meadows Club (now the Loews at Fremont and Boulder Highway come together) where locals could dine and gamble. When a fire destroyed the Club (amid rumors that the City Fire Department didn't respond because it was in the County and outside city limits), Cornero returned to Southern California where off-shore gambling was legal. He had owned the S.S. Lux and though raided many times by the Coast Guard, he was making a profit until he lost the boat in on-board, 24 hour crap game.

He bounced around Mexico and South America, trying his hand at gambling down there. But, according to authors Heidi Knapp Rinella and Mike Weatherford, that only lasted until he opened a door one morning and was greeted by four shots to the stomach. He decided to return to Los Angeles. Off-shore gambling was no longer allowed in Southern California but that didn't stop Cornero. He launched the S.S. Rex, a converted Navy minelayer. The floating casino did not last long as the Coast Guard seized it as a menace to navigation. Cornero decided to go where gambling was legal. He returned to Las Vegas and took over the casino in the Hotel Apache on Fremont Street. He rechristened the casino the S.S. Rex.

But like many of the visionaries of his day, Cornero dreamed big, of a carpet joint on the burgeoning Las Vegas Strip that didn't cater to the highrollers or the sophisticated but the little guy, the regular joes who were loading up their Chevy's and taking the family on vacation.

The Stardust took shape in his mind before he really had it all planned out. He bought 40 acres on the Strip in 1953. It cost him $650,000 and was between the El Rancho Vegas and the Last Frontier. He envisioned a hotel with a 1,000 rooms. But Cornero was not the best of businessmen. He soon found himself running short. Desperate to raise funds, he tried a unique approach. He sold shares in the project without bothering to work with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He raised over $6 million from investors all around the country.

He began building his dream resort, which he promised would be the "biggest and most luxurious in the world." (Don't they all say that?). He dreamed of a resort that would cost $5 dollars a night and give gamblers $5 dollars for gambling. He thought it would make him a fortune. He would call his resort the "Starlight" and envisioned it having its own train stop as the UP trains headed into downtown Las Vegas. "Astronomical luxury at down to earth prices" was to be the motto.

By the time the SEC caught up with him, according to Rinella and Weatherford, thousands of investors were bilked out of their money. He was forced to stop selling stock outside of Nevada.

Then there was the problem of getting a gaming license. The Nevada Tax Board investigated Cornero and discovered that he had been convicted during Prohibition of rum-running. Add to that his troubles with SEC and he didn't stand a chance in the era of Kefauver hearings of getting licensed. Rather than continue to try, Cornero approached another well-known local gamer, Milton "Farmer" Page. Page owned the popular Pioneer Club on Fremont Street and had an interest in the Boulder Club as well.

But a license wouldn't do any good if Cornero couldn't finish building the resort. He approached Moe Dalitz at the Desert Inn and via Dalitz, Meyer Lansky.

They were looking to expand in Las Vegas and the three men made a tentative agreement for Dalitz and his group (with Lansky, as always, the silent partner) to lease the casino once the resort was completed. As the building continued, money kept going into a vacuum. Before he knew it, Cornero was into Dalitz and "the boys" for $4 million.

An inveterate gambler, he thought he could win himself out of the hole and have enough money to complete construction and open his resort on schedule. He went over to the Desert Inn to play his favorite game, craps. While playing the game, Cornero apparently had a massive heart attack and died. He was whisked off the casino floor and taken to an executive's office. The police weren't called for another two hours and stories persist that the only way the sheriff's office found out was when reporters called to get a quote. The coroner ruled that Cornero died "before he hit the ground" but controversy swirled around the death when it was discovered that a Los Angeles mortuary had been notified before the Sheriff's Office.

The hotel was only 70% complete. Labor disputes brought construction to a halt at a time when work crews were at a premium with the Riviera, Royal Nevada and Dunes all near completion and the Hacienda and the Tropicana just beginning. Cornero's death jeopardized the hotel getting finished. Another $3 million was needed to complete the vision. Construction halted for two years while the courts and investors tried to find a workable solution.

William Boyd remembers, as a young man, "driving by it half-built" and wondering if it would be completed. Finally, as so often happens when the chips are down, an angel, of sorts, appeared on the horizon. Jake "The Barber" Factor, a wealthy Chicagoan and brother to Hollywood make-up guru Max Factor, and his wife, Rella, offered to buy the ailing hotel. Factor was rumored to have once been linked with Al Capone. The Factors bought out the 3,000 investors, paid off the creditors and resumed construction by investing $10 million to fund the finishing of the hotel. Of that $10 million, according to author Jeff Burbank, "$3 million came from Chicago mobsters such as Sam Giancana and United Hotels, the front group for Dalitz and Lansky."

United Holdings would lease the casino and run the gaming operations.

But before it could open, there were problems that had to be worked out. Alan Hess believes that the hotel was initially designed by an engineer or contractor without an overall image or vision. Unlike the Desert Inn and other hotels, it didn't have a unifying roof or an elegant entry. It did not have a porte cochere.

The structure was tilt-up concrete walls covered with wood roofs, a method favored by industrial buildings and warehouses. The garden-style rooms were post-tensioned concrete slab structures which was also favored by industrial buildings. The engineer of the motel wings was T.Y. Lin. Thomas Turner, an engineer with the local architectural firm, Jack Miller Associates, remembers that no one was in clear command during the building of the hotel.

The planners hadn't thought through the plans. Functional problems became apparent as construction moved slowly. The completed casino did not include "the attic" for surveillance purposes (the catwalks with the 'eye in the sky'). Jack Miller Associates designed the kitchen, restaurant, upstairs ballrooms and the Aku-Aku restaurant which was a separate tiki-style A-frame Polynesian themed eatery that would become legendary among visitors and locals alike.

The Showroom stage had to be revamped to include three hydraulic lifts, a truck dock, a rain curtain, a waterfall, a thrust stage which swept out into the audience and a tilt-up half-inch plate-glass floor that reflected the aquacade of dancers and swimmers in a pool below the stage. It was large enough to re-enact the sinking of the Titanic which show producer extraordinaire Donn Arden planned to do.

Dalitz hired Jac Lessman for the interior design of the hotel. Lessman had done the interiors at the Desert Inn. Saturday Review writer Horace Sutton recalled "It was the biggest thing I have ever seen and I include the Jama Mosque at Delhi... The cavernous lobby is a wild jamboree of games of chance and those taking a chance on them." The casino was the first thing you saw upon entering. All other functions, check-in, restaurants, shopping, showrooms and pools all spun off from the center.

At 16,500 square feet the casino was the largest in the State and likely the country as well. The owners bought up the shuttered Royal Nevada which had not survived the mid-1950s slump that had curtailed business. The Royal Nevada was slightly remodeled to become convention facilities and its garden-style rooms were incorporated into the Stardust. A half circle was added to the Royal Nevada's roofline but according to Alan Hess, the fountain of neon tubing marking the entrance was saved.

There was only place to go in town for the signage that was needed to promote the Stardust. Young Electric Sign Company had recently designed and erected the beautiful Mint Hotel signage which was quickly becoming a landmark downtown. Elegant, optimistic and pushing neon into the heavens, it took visitor's breaths away when they first saw it. They had encased the Golden Nugget in flicker bulbs and a bull-nose that jutted out over the the street. The Stardust needed a sign and a facade that promised the "galaxy under one roof".

Kermit Wayne was one of the senior designers, along with Hermon Boernge, at YESCO that routinely got tapped for big jobs and this one was no exception. The construction foreman asked YESCO and the other sign companies for ideas. YESCO held a design contest among its top designers.

Kermit Wayne's galaxy of neon facade and sign were chosen. According to Alan Hess, with so much space and so many fragmented elements spread across the huge lot, the facade and sign were crucial to the design. Passing motorists had to be engaged as they approached the resort and the signage had to tempt them off the highway. Because the Stardust was surrounded by desert, the owners were afraid that at night the hotel would be hard to see.

Abandoning the Old-West themes and the more sophisticated signage of the other hotels, Wayne went for broke and put the entire solar system across the front of the hotel that exploded out towards the edges. At the facade's center was a large, plastic earth, that according to Hess, "was 16 feet in diameter, formed in slices three feet across and ringed by a Sputnik, which was right off the front page of the daily papers. Cosmic rays of neon and electric light bulbs pulsed out from behind the earth in all directions."

Three dimensional planets spun into the night alongside twenty neon starbursts. Plastered across this universe, in space-age lettering that became iconic, were the letters Stardust. The "S" alone contained 975 lamps. During the day, the sky's painted sheet metal looked deep blue but on a clear night the neon constellation was said to be visible sixty miles away as motorists made the turn around the mountain into Las Vegas.

Standing on the highway in front of the hotel was a free-standing planet, a circle with a cloud of cosmic dust surrounding an outer ring and covered in stars. The resorts name was emblazed across the top amid a circle of neon. The marquee board boasted the Lido de Paris (all the way from France) and the lounge entertainment. Smaller signage marked out the property lines. The roadside sign was no bigger than the Desert Inn's Marquee or the Flamingos but it took neon signage on the Strip into the stratosphere.

The facade was bent slightly in the middle allowing the planet earth to jut out. This was to conform with the building. The southern half of the sign angled back so it could be seen by north-bound traffic.

The rest of the building seemed non-descript by comparison. Lacking a dramatic entrance and with parking in the front and along the sides the facade quickly became the most memorable part of the building. Roadside venacular had been kicked way up.

After the resort had opened, Kermit Wayne was visiting a friend of his at the Desert Inn, a pit boss. They decided to go to the Stardust and another man, coming up on their conversation, asked for a ride. The pit boss immediately said yes. When they pulled into the Stardust, the man told Wayne and his friend "I designed that sign." Wayne, very proud of his work, called the man on it and made it clear that Wayne had designed the sign. When the man left without saying more, Wayne's friend turned to Wayne and told him that the man had been Moe Dalitz.

The Stardust finally opened on July 2nd, 1958. With its space-aged theme, the hotel seemed to be Cornero's vision come to life. According to Alan Hess the Stardust was "architecturally little more than a warehouse." It had 1,000 rooms in two-story wings (garden-style rooms) that stretched to the rear of the property like boxcars." The 105-foot Big Dipper pool glistened in the summer sun inviting guests to jump in and cool off. The 16,500 square-foot casino was air-conditioned as were all the rooms.

The Lido de Paris was the largest production show yet produced on the Strip. It featured the world-famous Bluebell Dancers from England. They were overseen by Madame Bluebell, a friend of Frederic Apcar's from France. Other dancers in the show included a young female line captain, Fluff Lecoque who would become Donn Arden's muse for his tragedies like the sinking of the Titanic and his right hand when she ultimately moved off the line and into staging.

Opening night entertainment in the Ticker Tape lounge included the Happy Jesters, Billy Daniels, the Idiots, Dianne Payne and her Men of Note and the Stardusters.

At the back of the property was a drive-in theater, the Motor-Vue where teenagers and families would go on summer nights to enjoy a movie. The Stardust ended up buying the drive-in and renaming it the Stardust Drive-In.

The Stardust was the last hotel to be built on the Las Vegas Strip in the 1950s. It's arrival was also heralded by the older properties remodeling and renovating. Everybody it seemed needed more hotel rooms, more space, more machines. The Old West theme was almost gone from the landscape as older hotels raced to embrace the space-age theme. America had astronauts and Russians had launched a dog into space. The future was coming faster than anyone realized and Las Vegas was perched to ride that wave of optimism and can do spirit.

Kermit Wayne's Galaxy of Neon

Special thanks to UNLV Special Collections and Eric Lynxwiler for letting us use these images.

UP NEXT:

THE STORY OF THE STARDUST CONTINUES:

LIDO DE PARIS, ROSENTHAL AND SPILOTRO, THE MOB,

AND MORE!